Greetings birders,
In the lull between NY breeding bird atlases, I thought some birders out
there might be interested in some mid-season blockbusting. In this case,
it's not USGS blocks but the locale of a proposed wind energy project in
western NY.
The proposed Alabama Ledge wind farm, about 5 miles northwest of Batavia, NY
would consist of up to 52 wind turbines and border the southern edges of the
Iroqouis National Wildlife Refuge and the Oak Orchard Wildlife Management
Area. The Town of Alabama, NY is the lead agency and is currently weighing
the proposal and its draft environmental impact statement. The latter
included a breeding bird study in which the stated goal was:
"locating and counting breeding resident birds within the areas proposed for
development. The
surveys were conducted in the first two weeks of June based on the regional
timing
recommended for USGS BBS in western New York (USGS 2001)."
Toward that end, a consultant hired by the wind project developer carried
out two 3 minute point count surveys at 20 points within the wind project
area. That is all the breeding bird survey planned to be conducted for this
wind project and it provides the formal record for consideration of breeding
birds that might be potentially impacted by the project. To me that seems
like a grossly inadequate level of assessment, especially so for a wind
project proposed to be built in such close proximity to some of our precious
wildlife refuges. For any wind project in New York (and beyond) it seems we
should have a detailed record of what was there prior to the wind project's
construction.
I'm planning on heading over to the locality of the Alabama Ledge wind
project this Sunday to bird along the roadsides within the proposed wind
project area. I'd welcome coordinating with any similarly interested birders
this Sunday and collating sightings from birders visiting the location over
the next month. The goal would be to send the Town of Alabama, NYDEC and
USFWS a list of additional breeding species within the proposed wind project
development, that were not detected in the developer's survey, which might
be impacted by the wind project.
A map of the project area along with the species detected by the developer's
breeding bird study can be found at the following link:
http://www.horizonwindfarms.com/northeast-region/documents/under-dev/alabama-ledge/deis/Appendix%20F2%20Avian%20and%20Bat%20Studies.pdf
Please email me offlist if you are interested in participating in this
"blockbusting" effort.
Bill Evans
--
NYSbirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES
ARCHIVES:
1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html
2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html
3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
